


Pompeii

by Arlzureinne_Karale



Category: End Roll (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14167311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlzureinne_Karale/pseuds/Arlzureinne_Karale
Summary: And the walls kept tumbling down in this city that we love.





	Pompeii

**Author's Note:**

> End Roll belongs to Segawa. The title and the summary are referenced to Bastille's Pompeii, please give them a try, their songs are great. Also, wishing everyone a field day on this sunny April Fools' Day.

The Informant smiled.

Oh, he was always smiling, all right. Sometimes it got to the dreamer’s nerves, sometimes it didn’t, sometimes it anchored him to this world, sometimes it reminded him about how all of this wasn’t real—the Informant wasn’t, he knew it too, they both knew it, yet, who was smiling between the two of them? Always the Informant, always the boy with green eyes, always the guiltless one.

“What do you want to do now?”

At the seventh day, the Informant asked. Hands clasped on his back, back straight and tensed, eyes gleamed with something akin to remorse, as compunctious as _he_ could, for their appearance was the same, and the boy who dreamed wondered if he looked as repentant as the Informant did.

“I want to stay.”

And then he told him so, and there was something flashing behind those lustrous evergreens, dimmed by the transient reality he weaved in his head. The Informant’s smile disappeared for a split second, and another graced his visage, like a mask that he abandoned before he changed his mind, therefore, he wore it again. The Informant shook his head, the corners of his eyes crinkled.

“It’s your choice, Russell.”

 

* * *

The door was opened with a loud click. Blue eyes immediately turned to the sky, in which the shades of blue started to drip, to leak, like an old paint plastered on an abandoned home. The clouds were dragged down, the sun fell. Russell forgot to count the days, but the ground was already crumbled to pieces, leaving only the path that lead to the Nameless Town residents’ houses.

A loud noise was heard, reflex made Russell turned his head to the direction of it. Tabasa McNeil’s house collapsed in a heap of debris, there was no smoke and fire, no crowds and screams, silence pierced the void, and Russell turned away from the ruins, tracing his steps to the center of the town.

The eyes were crying blood when he saw a lone figure standing on the boulevard, tilting his head up to watch the sky dripped, drip, drip, as if it was a mere drizzle splashed on his face. Russell didn’t greet him nor made a noise, but the boy turned to him all the same.

“Good morning, Russell,” the Informant spoke, a smile made its way to his countenance. The splitting image of the dreamer took a soundless breath before continuing, somehow almost mockingly by the way he put his words together into a string of question: “How was your sleep?”

Russell didn’t entertain him with an answer. The Informant curled his smile.

“Tabasa’s house and Darcover Town collapsed, I suggest you to not take a walk in the forest today.” Or ever again, the unspoken words stacked together into a continuation. The Informant gestured his hands to his house, as if inviting Russell in. The young dreamer followed his steps through the door and into the only intact dwelling in this ever-shattering town. The sky dripped on his shoulder, into the blue roof of the Informant’s home, hissing into a smoke, into a laugh.

Such a place was beyond saved, and here they were, Russell Seager and his own consciousness. The Informant took a seat on the overly large cushion in the center of the room, patting the place beside him for Russell to sit, but the said boy only shook his head, earning a careless shrug.

“What is it?” Finally, the boy asked. His voice hoarse and frayed in the edge, in a way that he never actually used again ever since Kantera disappeared into a heap of diamond dust and flowers seeds. Russell watched as the Informant tilted his head up, their eyes met; blue in a doubt, green in a wonder, and Russell wondered if this was the feeling of looking into a mirror.

“Just wondering if you will change your mind,” the splitting image of his said. His smile was now a mere ghost of it, unlike Tabasa’s when the young man decayed into stars and constellations, or the Toscarina siblings when they broke into ashes and embers. One by one, leaving the town into an idea of daydream inhabited only by Russell in the company of his own shadow.

Russell raised his eyebrows, prompting the Informant to continue. The boy with green eyes treaded his hands on his lap, fingers clasped together in a loose hold, eyes slid shut in a smile Russell couldn’t quite understand what it meant. “About staying here,” said the Informant, with a tone as if he was an older, experienced figure reprimanding a much younger, much more immature young man.

Silence was the only thing braided around their identical frames, as Russell prolonged his time to process the Informant’s words. He understood, yes, the dreamer painfully understood what he meant. Nonetheless, he didn’t acknowledge it. Even when the cold semblance of guilt started to creep on his back, on his neck, laughing right on his nape, chomping on the flesh.

“Gardenia disappeared today, your mind can’t hold her image for too long,” the Informant concluded after the silence. Unlike Russell’s, his voice was a thread of something more pleasant, crisp and clear, rippling through the trembling air, more _reality_ -like, in such way as if he was the one who dreamed all along, albeit the two of them knew he was just a mere representation of Russell’s consciousness. “Your head is crumbling, don’t you think it’s time to wake up?”

A frown graced Russell’s mien, blue eyes shifted to the side, away from the Informant’s knowing look. They were literally the same, but it unnerved the dreamer when he realized the Informant knew him more than he knew himself, being pushed to the back of his mind and fed on his thought flashing before he brought the iron pipe down the zookeeper’s head, or just before he pushed the blessed girl down, or just a moment of realization when he flicked the match and watch the flame danced in the warped darkness.

The Informant shut his lips; imaginary stitches went around the rim of his now-frowning lips. Russell saw his clothes flashed in white, and then he stared at his own reflection. But then, he blinked, and the Informant still sat there with his back a little bit bend forward.

Russell wasn’t exactly one who would answer every exclamation spewed by anyone, thus the splitting image of his accepted his silence as a mean to take a breath. “Every time you open your door, your eyes get sadder and sadder, and I know you actually regretted this.”

He always spoke the truth, did he not? Albeit in riddles and conundrums, a little bit further than the truth. Perhaps it was because Russell despised veracity, or mayhap it was because Russell dreamed to be someone who could thread reality around his words without flinching on the thorns.

Deep in thought, Russell almost missed it when the Informant spoke again.

“The church is burning.”

The blue-eyed boy didn’t know why the Informant knew, for he didn’t even glance at the windows. Russell ambled to the side, glancing to the direction of the church that was already long-abandoned even by the dreamer. Flames engulfed all of it in an illusion of colors, explosion of hues; green and purple, red and brown, the color of Toscarina siblings and their flowers. There was a scream, but it wasn’t Russell’s nor the Informant’s, and it was Russell’s memory of Dogma Toscarina trying so hard to grapple at his dying sister.

Russell stepped back, startled. Eyes blown wide and flashed with distress. For a moment, he breathed, wondering why he was still alive or was he actually alive at this moment. He didn’t count the days, but he knew the time was already gone for so long. For all he knew, the earth already spun for twenty-eight years, and this was his seven minutes of memories before he died.

However, for seven minutes, this dream already ran too far, too long, the sky was still dripping blue paint, dragging clouds along with them, tearing the colors until Russell could see how empty his own mind was, how cold and miserable, how lonely it seemed should he leave this world.

The Informant waited, fingers tightly gripped around each other, his smile now was only a courtesy, something possessed by him only, so Russell didn’t feel like looking at his reflection.

“There is no way to wake up, anyway,” finally, Russell said. His timbre was grabbling the silence. He had already slept for so long, half of his consciousness already casted itself away. He had no energy to wake up, for to rouse was to pull his entire mind into the reality in hand, and Russell was already so keen on death, so close, so intimate. “I’m sure they already declared me as dead.”

The green-eyed boy smiled. “I know a way.” And he said that with so much confidence, with the same way he did when Russell put a walnut on the green telephone and rang him with questions.

Russell spoke before he thought, “What do you not know?” It was partially true, because what did the Informant not know? What did he not understand? The Informant knew every nooks and crannies of this dream, every littlest thing that escaped Russell’s mind, even when he accidentally stepped on the unregulated space back then to chase after the Dreamsend members.

It took the dreamer by surprise when there was, actually, something the Informant didn’t know.

“Whether you want to wake up or not.”

Russell didn’t know about that, too.

His supposed Happy Dream was already crumbling long before he said he wanted to stay, he just didn’t want to accept it just yet. Every time he opened his eyes, he told himself everything would be all right, that he could see the end of this dream without grief, that he would indulge himself with the life he always wanted to lead. But alas.

Would he wake up now?

Guilt prickled on the back of his neck, on the back of his heart, shackling his wrist and clenching onto his heart. Russell still grieved all the same, silently and relentlessly so, as Tabasa grinned his last laugh, as Kantera patted his back and shattered, as Dogma and Cody turned into ashes, as Yumi and Mireille and Gardenia just faded into nothingness.

There was nothing left in this dream.

Would he wake up now?

There was something beyond his eyelids. The Informant waited patiently. There were the Dreamsend members and their promise of meeting him at the other side, there was Chris, somewhere, somehow, still working and wondering whether Russell would come back after the tragedy with his family. Russell could mend his sins, he could put flowers on Gardenia’s grave, he could pay the zoo a visit and feed the monkeys; there was so much he could do.

Would he wake up now?

“No.”

 

* * *

 

Walter Bartley flinched when he heard the bang of the door. Raymond Costa caught his breath with so much difficulty, Walter almost, _almost_ , offered him a glass of water. “What is it?” the blond asked, without lenity, to the blue-haired male who crouched down on the doorway. He was working, and everyone know the young researcher hated it when someone interrupted his time.

Raymond wheezed, incapable to say anything just yet. Fairia Adelista’s head popped from behind him, her eyes bright with something Walter couldn’t quite put his fingers around. The dream guide only gestured her head to the hallway, and reluctantly, Walter put down his tools and stepped out.

The hallway of dreamers was cold, colder than any facilities in which the three of them worked at. Walter glanced at every name that scrawled on top of the door, crossed by bright, red paint dried by wind as they dripped with a cry of mercy. All of the doors were closed, the corpse of the dreamers was already moved to the graveyard behind this facilities. Only one body remained until they could confirm his death through the now-opened door.

“He woke up, when they wanted to move him,” Fairia spoke, low and faint, there was a trace of surprise hidden in his words, Walter almost missed it. For a moment, questions flashed in his head, until he finally remembered who would Fairia be referring to, for the only dreamer who was under Walter’s, Raymond’s, and Fairia’s care was Russell Seager.

Upon realization, green eyes widened just a bit. He knew how they declared Russell as a failure because the boy didn’t want to wake up albeit his dreams ended, thus why they sealed his door. Walter wondered why, and then how, and then he remembered the promise of their meeting in this side. Unconsciously, the young researcher walked two steps faster, impatience braided his gaze.

The door was opened wide, with a doctor and two nurses tending on the sitting boy. They moved slightly when Walter showed up on the door, nodding a greeting to each other as he stepped closer.

The roused sleeper was looking at his hands when Walter got a clear sight of his frame. He was thin and made of bones, skin clung to the remaining of flesh. Blond hair hung past his eyes, brushing his nape. His skin was pale and dull, his lips blue and purple; this was the appearance of a young, broken teenager who touched death on his sleep.

Russell looked up.

His eyes were green.

The Informant didn’t smile.

**.**

**Author's Note:**

> I replayed Alice Mare some weeks ago, and just had this idea about Informant switching place with Russell, since, well, unconsciousness, you know? My headcanon is the Informant is actually a part of Russell's mind, it's kind of twisty, but I hope you get the idea of it, cough.
> 
> Have I told you I love Walter? Yes, I love Walter. Scream about him with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kaIsinasi)
> 
> My savior, Freyyyy, thank you for proofreading it!
> 
> Sorry for any grammar mistakes, thank you for reading~!  
> -Azureinne K.


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